Safety Concerns Prompt Schools To Curb Travel

School districts across the country are keeping students close to home
following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Many have banned trips abroad
and even some local field trips.

Districts have scotched trips out of fears for students' safety, as
well as for their own possible liability if things go awry,
administrators say. Some officials also cite respect for the victims of
the attacks as a reason not to travel.

Travel by educators to conferences also has decreased in the wake of
the assaults on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, and several
education groups have canceled meetings.

The National Board for Professional Teaching Standards, for example,
has called off two meetings that had been scheduled for Oct. 18-21 in
downtown Washington.

"The timing was just not very good," said Betty Castor, the
president of the Alexandria, Va.-based board, which certifies teachers
who meet its national standards.

"Teachers were concerned about safety, and a lot of them were
concerned about their special role in the classroom," she said. "These
are teachers, and they really don't want to be apart from students at
this time."

Instead, the national board will hold two professional-development
meetings for teachers early next year. Its annual board meeting will be
held in Philadelphia the middle of this month.

Along with the teaching-standards board, the National Association of
State Boards of Education, the Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education
Network, and the Arts Education Partnership all called off meetings
scheduled for this fall.

And the Close-Up Foundation, which runs civic tours for students in
Washington, expects to see a drop in attendance this school year.

"I guarantee that our fall enrollment will be down significantly,"
said spokeswoman Cindy McConnell. Ten schools have called off trips,
she said, while another 11 have delayed them. She pointed out, however,
that 85 percent of the foundation's 2,000 school trips in the last
academic year occurred in the spring.

Dozens of districts, meanwhile, have banned student travel overseas
and, to a lesser extent, all student trips requiring air travel, said
June Million, a spokeswoman for the National Association of Elementary
School Principals, based in Alexandria, Va.

"All I hear is gloom and doom," said Larry J. Liner, the president
of American Tours and Travel, an Orlando, Fla.-based agency that books
about 250 trips each year for middle and high schools. Mr. Liner
estimates that his $10 million-a-year business will be off 20 percent
for the next year, although he notes that student travel has grown
"exponentially" in the past five years.

In Wisconsin, Wauwatosa East High School has canceled two student
trips abroad out of concern for students' safety.

The school's orchestra was to perform this month in Dublin and
London, while its concert band was to perform at a New Year's Day
parade in London. Students had spent two years preparing for the trips,
raising money by selling pizzas and holding 14-hour "play-a-thons,"
said Rob R. Engl, the co-director of the band, who would like the trips
to go forward.

Superintendent Robert Slotterback of the 7,100-student Wauwatosa
district said he had to rule otherwise, even though parents could lose
as much as $150,000.

"I had to make a decision on whether it's safe," he said, "not on
how hard they've worked."

The school board upheld the decision, voting 5-2 in favor Sept.
27.

One of the New Year's Day parade organizers criticized the Wauwatosa
superintendent's decision in sharp language. "He's being a coward,"
William A. Northen, the North American representative of the London Day
Parade Festival, said of the schools chief. "He has not taken other
people's views into account," he added.

Superintendent Slotterback countered that he had talked with
parents, students, and teachers before deciding. Mr. Northen "has the
parade's interests at heart," he said. "I have the kids'."

Mr. Slotterback also cited a U.S. Department of State announcement
on Sept. 12 urging "worldwide caution" for U.S. citizens and advising
Americans to "maintain a low profile [and] vary routes and times for
all required travel" abroad.

Still, Mr. Northen said, 22 of 26 American schools scheduled to
perform in the London parade will continue as planned.

Last Thursday, President Bush announced new security measures for
air travel and urged Americans to resume flying to U.S.
destinations.

'Not Responsible'

The 102,000-student Milwaukee district has banned student trips
abroad until further notice, said Don Hoffman, the acting director of
communication. "Obviously, there was concern about safety and that this
was not responsible to have kids traveling," he said.

In Gwinnett County, Ga., all overnight field trips for students must
be cleared through the district's central office. To secure approval
for such trips, principals need to consult with a school improvement
adviser, who reports to a district assistant superintendent,
spokeswoman Sloan Roach said.

"We don't want to take any chances with field trips," said Ms. Roach
of the 116,500-student system, located 20 miles northeast of Atlanta.
One field trip that was canceled was Simpson Elementary School's trip
to downtown Atlanta to see a performance of "Sesame Street Live."

The wariness about travel also has curbed exchange programs that
bring foreign students to American schools.

North Andover High School in Massachusetts was among those. It won't
be playing host to the expected 22 German students who had planned to
spend two weeks in late September and early October living with North
Andover students. German parents anxious about their children derailed
those plans, breaking a 12- year-old tradition for the school.

"Their concern was not exclusively safety," said Artha Gerland, the
chairwoman of the foreign-languages department. "It was more, how can
we, looking at what happened, go as sightseers? They felt that to go
would be kind of macabre, kind of voyeuristic."

But 22 North Andover students still plan to visit Bonn, Germany, in
the spring. "We're listening to what our president is saying: that we
need to get on with our lives," said Principal Susan M. Nicholson.
Additional student travel is planned this school year for Virginia and
Spain, she said.

Losing Money

For education organizations, decisions to call off meetings were
prompted by practical as well as emotional considerations.

"We started to realize on the Wednesday after the attack that it was
not only a matter of not making money, but that we'd lose a lot of
money," said Brenda Lilienthal Welburn, the executive director of the
National Association of State Boards of Education in Alexandria,
Va.

When 20 of 200 attendees signaled that the attacks would prevent
them from traveling, the association decided to call the meeting
off.

The decision was costly: Ms. Welburn estimates the association will
lose $20,000 in staff time and for speakers booked for the event, which
was to be held in mid-October in San Diego.

For the Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education Network, logistical
worries were paramount, said Executive Director Kevin Jennings. The New
York City-based group canceled its annual meeting set for Sept. 21-23,
scheduled to be held in Alexandria, Va., within a few miles of the
damaged Pentagon.

But officials with larger education groups said their annual
meetings, many of which generate significant operating revenue and
aren't scheduled until next year, would be held as planned.

The American Association for School Administrators, based in
Arlington, Va., has no plans to reschedule or cancel its annual
meeting, to be held in mid-February in San Diego, said spokeswoman
Barbara E. Knisely.

The AASA meeting can draw 10,000 educators and 1,500 vendors.

"It's a larger part of our operations here," Ms. Knisely said of the
meeting.

Vol. 21, Issue 5, Pages 1, 14

Published in Print: October 3, 2001, as Safety Concerns Prompt Schools To Curb Travel

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